With In
by Redaura
Summary: Sarahs left Toby in foster care to persue her acting carer. 'What a pity'. Then Toby goes missing...
1. Prologue.

AN: It needed a prologue. I was just going to leave it as a little note, but it sort of grew. Tell me if you think it's to boring. Please?

****

Within.

Prologue.

Extract from: The Races of the Underground. 

The original Elves soon found that they had to move on to other pastures and territories due to numbers, resources, magical energies and in some cases feuds. This coursed them to loose touch with the Homeland and develop their own strain of magic and in turn develop into a new race over the millennia's. 

Sid'he where slowly formed over the millennia's to then move back and mingle with the former Elves where the Fae kept them selves to themselves, not wishing to be ridiculed for being a cross breed of fairy and Elf. Together they where known as the Creatures of the Moon and Silver Light.
    
    This all changed in the War of the Realms, where a Fae Prince came forward to unite the Underworld to defeat their common enemy. If he had not done so the whole Labyrinth of Realms in existence would have been fed to the life consuming, mutated dead of the Moon Creatures that the dumped excess of Demented Magic* formed.
    After the shredding was formed, and the mortals where forever banned from the Underground the humans developed as the Children of the Sun. Slaves to technology they scorched the surface of their more than adequate planet to meet their own greed's. in disgust the Creatures in the Underground soon ignored them, except to annoy and play with.

Some of these Mortals managed to come across the boundary, to fulfil the Magic's need of use. As not all creatures are the same, some of these Mortals fitted into the Underground more than Aboveground and so stayed, the magic giving them longer life and disease resistance. These are known as Changelings and although they are generally excepted, some of the less tolerant Moon People look down on them as animals. 

****

*Magics: 

There is the magic that runs every land, but for every land there is an excess, so it must be stored or else it will go bad, and things such as Vampires will have the power to rise again. This is called Demented Magic, as it also has the power to suck the happiness out of any living thing to live them to despair and death. 


	2. Chapter 1: Toby's Gone.

AN: I'm editing. :) Spelling, HTML etc. Hopefully if should be neater…

Disclaimer: Labyrinth belongs to Henderson and co. The song I use in the middle somewhere belongs to Chris Goy. He did a school C.D. and it isn't half-bad either...

****

With In.

Chapter 1: Toby's Gone.

****

Four years after the film.

Clutching, grasping desperately at slivers that moved just out of her peripheral vision. Shadows that hid from the sun, no matter how fast Sarah spun. _Sarah. My name is Sarah._

Some of her mind fell into place. She knew her head hurt. She had arms and legs, a body and was warm and soft. Just one more important thing eluded her. Snow white feathers over black leather. Eyes one cruel ice, the other natures brown. Arrogant, rumbles of mockery and amusement at her. 

"Sarah _please_ wake up."

Sarah frowned, irritated because now she felt something was expected of her and she lost her fleeting image of where she felt she belonged...

"Sarah! Pwease!" It was the sound of the little boys' voice breaking further, into tears.

"Toby?" she managed to croak out.

"Sarah!" the relief in Tobys voice was almost as painful as Sarah's body. She couldn't remember what had happened. 

"Mum and dad are dead!" Sarah rocked Tobys' shocked body as best she could, contending with tubes and sore bandages. She remembered now, but couldn't cry past the numbness. Couldn't force anything out, past the blockade with in her. 

Suddenly Toby looked fearfully at her, his red and white blotched face, age darkened hair in disarray. "Don't let him get me," he begged with a child's simplicity.

"Who?" Alarm stirred in Sarah's' stomach. 

"Him. You've saved me before." Did he mean Jareth? 

"Oh Toby, I won't let anyone get you." Toby settled again, safe with in his sisters' protection.

Jareths gaze burned the crystal, making the stark, clinical hospital scene flame. He had managed to save her this time, barley, from a sixteen-ton truck hitting her fragile form through the brittle eggshells of the family car. He had only managed to save Sarah.

He had to admit that his Sarah had changed. She'd managed to meet Karen half way, they'd never understand each other, but they could co-exist. She was a good big sister, the best. Willing to brave hardships untold and dangers unnumbered, refusing her dreams so she could know with certainty that Toby was safe. It had taken a while for Jareth to understand that.

__

Don't you understand? I have to save Toby. She had told him. He'd ignored her, underestimated her, and been so cocksure for he'd never ever lost before. His subjects wouldn't dare. Hoggle and co where paying the consequences, but not to harshly, they where after all Sarah's _friends_. 

Where, how had they, especially that _scab_ succeeded where he hadn't? He'd done every thing she'd ever wanted and it still hadn't been enough. 

He could hear and feel what she thought and dreamt. What she _wanted_ in the corners of her mind. Crystals and magic. Castles and knights. Jareth. 

Jareth was no saviour, yet he'd saved her, almost killed himself in doing so. Been weak in bed like a mortal, vulnerable to attack, for her. 

He wasn't good, or _fair_. He'd let her have Toby whole and human. He could be so cruel. He hadn't pulled one of the thousands of tricks or word games that was at his disposal. That would keep her with him forever at whatever status he desired. She'd be _his_ slave. 

He saw her empty not seeing gaze penetrate him through the crystal. Jareth had a new idea of how to treat her. As and equal, no trying to cower her or rule and break her. He loved her how she was after all. She was drawn to him. It could work, if he played his cards right. 

The image of Sarah wrestled half-heatedly with the drip, after a surge of relived nurses and doctors had scurried round and left muttering about miracles. They'd left Toby with her. Jareth was glad. With a bitter smile he remembered how taking Toby away, even when she wished it had worked.

"What are we going to do?" it seemed like she questioned the crystal, and included Jareth.

__

We could try and see. But I don't want to hurt, to go through that again. Have it spat back in my face after revealing my self to you and only for you. Would you make it worse?

Jareth flung the crystal violently away from him. Inside he was trembling with fear of the unknown. And something else. Hope.

He could but stare as she slept. Rumpled sweaty Sarah. Needing a bath, a sweet assault on his senses. She was alive.

__

Oh how you turn my world you precious thing.

Yes, she was precious but no thing. A girl, women to be treasured...he could do that. He would do _anything_ for her. He'd done what she had wanted last time, but that hadn't been enough. What she thought she wanted hadn't been it. What she wanted she got. She'd ignored him as soon as he'd realised he had lost. All for that bloody babe. The what ifs and past recollections engulfed him.

****

Two years later.

__

'If I could find, a way to help you understand me more

If I could see, a reason to believe in me

If I could find, a road to take me back to life before

If I could be the me I used to be

The streets no different in the rain

When I get home it seems the dogs the same

My little brother still thinks girls are pains

So then how come it's only me who's changed?

If I could make, the world just disappear before my eyes. 

If I could slow, the days the months and so

If I could sort the truth out from this myriad of lies

And find a way to calm my hopes my fears 

Sometimes the World seems so insane

To me I'm losing in an endless game

I search for ways to try and ease my pain

But deep inside you know I'm still the same

In my confusion I survive

Not knowing where or where of even why

I search in hope and pray, I call, I cry

But in the end it's only me inside.'

Sarah sighed. Looking out of the window she saw what she always saw – gun grey rain streaking the window and landscape in soft, dampening rushes. Oh, she was very lucky, her adopted parents really cared for her and Toby, after her mother, the all grand actress had put them up for sale. They'd taken her in when legally she should have been shoved out to fend for herself. She always had a home to go to, no matter what. They where great, really. Toby was already calling them mum and dad.

They'd moved to England, for David's job. Northeast-nearly-Scotland England. Sarah had thought she'd had plenty of private space to act her dreams, when she wasn't working, instead the local farmers where all leaning on the gate applauding her. News travelled fast, like defussion. She was an actress, under her own steam, but just not quite hitting it. 

She'd have to do what here mother did. 

Leave. 

It wasn't like she wouldn't visit, or call, or as if they needed her.

__

But in the end it's only me inside.

Sarah sighed. She seemed to have an emotion blockage. Nothing would come out. Oh, she had done all right in her audition, but not like she knew she was capable of acting! It was so frustrating, like something was holding her back. She wasn't fulfilled. She was an empty vessel waiting for personification. Something she wasn't getting. 

With a wry smile she shouldered her way into the small apartment she shared with seven other Hollywood wanna bes. 

__

Maybe I am like my mother, just wanting **me**. Off to tinsel town in glitter and rags, wanting the magic of it, the fakeness, the **life** of it to heal me. Rebirth me.

Sarah roughly dismissed the unflattering thought and with excess force slammed the play on the answering machine. None for her till the end. A distraught sobbing, David talking with forced and wane calm over Susanna's weeping.

"Toby's gone."


	3. Chapter 2: The Lonely Ones.

AN: So do you think reworking it is better? I have changed some descriptions etc, and I think it is way better, though that wouldn't be hard. I'm very ashamed of the first effort.

****

Within.

Chapter 2:The Loney Ones. 

Toby's gone. Toby's gone. Toby'sgoneToby'sgonegonegonegonegone, the little goblins inside taunted. It's your entire fault, if you hadn't have been so selfish, if you hadn't have left, if you hadn't have been a spoiled brat and wished him away... They kept whizzing round her head as she left a note, flung some clothes into a bag and headed for the airport, ringing Susanna and David to let them know when to expect her. 

It suddenly struck her as she raced to meet them at Newcastle airport, Jareth. Too late, she rushed through the English drizzle and into their car. She'd have to confront him when they where asleep. If he came. If he had Toby he would come. She filled herself with protective anger. She would need it to face Jareth. He was unlikely to underestimate her again.

****

Jareth was in a foul mood. His throne room deserted as his goblins clumsily scrabbled to flee his wrath. A small part of him knew he was being childish, but no, he was the Goblin King, one of the most respected and feared of all the Fae Kingdoms, with reason. He held the reserves of Magic for all of the Realms in the Underground. The overflow was used on the Wished Away Ones, The Lonely Ones, and The Unwanted Ones. 

He paused in the middle of his rage, an insane calm coming over him as he thought of Sarah. _I never thought to lose to her. I watched her and thought I knew her._ No, it was more than seemingly conjured and juggled crystal balls. With one jerk he gave into temptation, as he did, everyday, every night, and snapped a crystal of her image to his needy eyes.

Sarah as ever, salved his eyes, but only her body could salve his body that was burning in need of her. She looked sad, dejected and fearful, and covering it well with ferocious anger. She looked so solemn and lifeless in the moon leeched dark with in his crystal.

"JARETH!"

He started, almost dropping his crystal. Why...?

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH TOBY?!"

Ah, something had happened to Toby. _That's_ why she required his presence. Ignoring the flickers of unease whispering in his stomach, Jareth flew to teach the imprudent child a lesson. 

****

Jareths' problem was now he had her in front of him it would be just be so easy ... She was a misunderstanding child in a womens body. He stepped out of the shadows behind her and grabbed her around the waist. "You yelled?" he purred down her neck, sardonically. 

She tensed in his arms, her pulse quickening in preparation for battle. "What have you done to Toby?"

"Toby? Toby? Who's Toby?" she whipped around in his arms and went for his eyes with her nails. He restrained her, surprised, and he could see what had caused it. Fear for Toby and an easy scrape goat was what she hopped he was. It made him feel so loved. _Maybe I should be a Goblin..._He let the anger fill him but he couldn't hold it as he realised silver streams of tears where trailing silently down her smooth, lean cheeks. All emotion but the need to hold her and comfort her evaporated, disappeared to the winds at the sight of her pain.

Instead he pulled her out and held her to tightly with his grasping fingers at arms length and waited for the empty look to leave her eyes. 

"I have done nothing to Toby." He finally admitted. "I haven't done anything to you two since I the last time." He neatly skipped the truck incident. That was a card to play at the end.

"You don't even know where he is?" she pleaded. The tears swamped her eyes under. He couldn't help himself. He pulled her into his arms and sang softly to her heart. She clung to him soaking up his warmth. When she was almost asleep in his embrace, hanging in his support he regretfully broke their life raft of peace in their world. 

"What happened?" His voice was calm and hypnotic.

"Two nights ago David and Susanna went out. It was their tenth wedding anniversary. When they got back the babysitter was in pieces on the couch, hence the B+B."

"Anything unusual."

"Toby's gone and the baby sitters dead!" her voice rose to fever pitch.

"As in the person who did it?"

"Not a trace."

Lost in thought Jareth said, "I need to look. I'll be back." Sarah almost growled in frustration. The baby sitter was dead. Who ever had taken Toby was obviously violent and a murderer. The police had been polite, even comforting but blank and distant. They didn't have much hope. 

Sarah didn't have much hope. She had hoped in the cockles of her heart that Jareth _had_ taken him. Jareth played by the rules. Jareth wouldn't kill Toby. Jareth would have Sarah instead of Toby. Better the devil you know...

The unknown, like salt encrusted wounds gnawed at Sarah till she collapsed on the bed, running circles round her mind, knotting and tripping herself.

Jareth materialised in their house. The smell of blood was rampant; the feel of the baby sitters death pressed against his mind and tainted the air. _By the bog_ he thought dizzily, _this isn't my decade for being strong. I let the Labyrinth fall into disrepair, get beaten by a child and then get overpowered by this..._

Jareth stiffened as he recognised what it was. Vampires and Ghouls. Rotting bodies and their foul, evil magic. They left a certain memorable smell that could contend with the Bog in it's own way. _Perhaps I should get aid on my borders after all..._ it struck him what it could be. The Rite of Deceased Power. When Magic is used, it has to go somewhere, and only a tainted person would be able to wield it without being ripped to pieces by the force... His mouth wouldn't' suck air into his lungs fast enough. It might not be, they hadn't tried anything for a long time...

He got himself under control, straightened his jacket with excess precision and did a detour back to Sarah on the way to his castle. 

****

His Sarah was looking at him so expectantly, confused. Could it mean she trusted him? 

"I think," Jareth stated cautiously, a new expression for the reckless, impulsive Goblin King, "I know what happened, but I'm going to have to double check."

"Why help me? I mean I beat you and all..." Sarah trailed off uncertain.

"This is more than us. If I am right the whole of the Underground will ride once more to put them down. I'll be back," he added wryly, watching his words sink in, like they never had before. He was reflecting on that as he left her in the dark. 

Alone.


	4. Chapter 3: Concil of Moon and Silver Lig...

AN: Again, now I've altered parts of it I'm not so embarrassed by it. Please say if you like my improved version.

****

Within.

Chapter 3: Council of Moon and Silver Light. 

Jareth stared at the cold stone wall of his room, his thoughts whirling and blurring into one. Sarah, she'd been in front of him, in his arms against his body...

"Oh shit!" he'd left her unprotected, alone! What a great king he was! But he couldn't go himself, he _had_ to address the council, and would he be able to get past one taste of her sweet lips? No.

"Mauritania!"

"Yeth thir?" the dry lisp crawled form behind him, just like that, as if she had always been. She was one of the best warriors and guards under Jareths command her wits not at all marred by the escaping of Demented Magic full on to her as a child. It had made her train harder to be the best, and get over her disabilities. She was always up for a challenge; Jareth could rely on her.

"Up for a new challenge of old?"

"Alvayth."

"Sarah Williams, at Hoarsely Hall B+B. whatever guards and weapons you need."

"It'th done."

One little thing supposedly off his mind, he strode to attend his council. 

****

"Tharah." A voice rasped. She screamed and tried to face it, but it dodged her eyes and wove in the shadows of her room. "Jareth hath sent uth to guard you. It vould be apprethiated if you thay vere you are going."

It was gone, just like that. But it was still there. She could feel it watching her. Her skin crawled and Sarah shuddered with a strangled gasp. She peered over her shoulder and turned around the room in unreasonable fear for what seemed like ages until against her will she calmed down. Surely if Jareth had sent it, it couldn't be that bad?

Jareth was worried, about her. Somehow Sarah had thought that the arrogant Goblin King would make everything okay, but he couldn't. Would this bodyguard mean he wasn't coming back? Did Jareth really send it? What if...Sarah sank back on the strange and alien bed, wishing she at least had something familiar, somewhere to call home and a refuge where nothing could harm her. But when had home been _home_? It had always been someone else's generosity with her in their house.

****

Jareth wanted to give into habits picked up from watching Sarah. Scream at them, massage his aching forehead, run to his room and fly from his window...watch Sarah. All escapist, all useless compared to events and time. This was going to bite his ass either way.

He observed his council, gained from his dealings of the last War of the Realms and Magic's. No one had been spared, everyone had felt the drain of being leeched, and it was why the shredding dividing the realms had been formed, to protect and retain. Only Jareth had the power to cross it, only he. They had scorned him for his choice of kingdoms, he had chosen peace over constant plotting, that was why he had chosen the Goblins, who badly needed a strong king after there near massacre, where their realm had been used to shove the Undead.

It seemed that the Undead could travel beyond their cage as well. He shook his head empty of wishful dreams and fantasies that had been allowed to clutter his mind and slammed his fist on the table before him.

The assembled, all beautiful Fae, Sid'he and elves in their pale and exquisite wear silenced instantly, still looking like drunk, mortal riffraff, about to start a brawl. 

"As you probably know," he stated, bending the acoustics to his will, "the Undead have struck. They are trying to gather the means and the strength to absorb the Shredding and be at large to feed." The assembled looked fearfully at each other, in their secure comfort. He meant feed on Fae blood, to be strong enough to take on mortal iron and stamina.

"How do you know?" a Fae cried form the back, "you just want the power you lost of old! You're a false alarmist!"

Jareth blazed with instant fury. "Do _you_ bother to look beyond your Harem, Sallibean? Do _you_ think of the consequences? Did _you_ risk your life so all around you weren't made rotting, walking corpses of death? Or bedazzled into entrapment? No. I distinctly remember _you_, Sallibean cowering behind your underpaid and abused Home Guard screaming like a girl!" 

He paused, not gauging their reaction, the words flowed from somewhere deep within that had been realised. 

"Do you all wish to see your subjects that _you_ have _sworn_ on _your _life to protect become lifeless, bent over alters to be scarified to who _you_ are to gutless to name?"

They where silent, listening. He had them. He couldn't have cared less. 

"Vargner!" he bellowed. To his deep down amusement they all jumped. These Fae who where millennia's older than he had been sneering in the background at him. Him, the one who wouldn't amount to much. _Look atme now and weep_ his mind flung at them.

He was brought to a stop, his temper cooling and drying as if it had never been. A single clapping rang out, peeling like a bell of hope, echoing in the unadorned hall. They all joined in, as sheep. His disgust at them remained. Two-faced hypocrites, but who was he say?

He stood tall, in traditional Eleven Cloth, shimmering in the radiance of the old, guttering torches held close to the table. A circle of light surrounding the fifty Fae, Sid'he and Elves, creatures of Moon and Silver Light before him.

He had their support, to the end as before. He prayed it wouldn't end as before, but he would take that over losing.

"My servants will attend you." He said it so softly that they had to strain their perfect hearing to decipher the uttered words. This time around, Jareth would have somewhere to call his own, somewhere to heal. 

That was if they won. If. 

They had to win. He vanished. Now that was dealt with, it would be easier to keep Sarah safe Underground, a Daughter of the Sun in eternal night.

****

"Sarah." He _was_ back, that voice with so much hidden emotion could only be him. She trembled with relief and resisted the urge to launch herself into his arms and be safe, at home, never to move, but no.

He was wearing an amazingly elusive cloth that fitted his lithe form well; his hair was sharp relief against his moon-drained features. It wasn't eighties, and it definitely wasn't nineties anymore. It was Underground. 

"Did you send a person who stands behind you and lisps?"

"Yes." His eyes drank in the sight of her, kneeling on her bed in the liquid silver light.

"Why?"

"They might come for you. Do _you_ understand? They took Toby, as he is capable of travelling as I made him so when you wished him away. You have the same advantages, as it where."

"Oh." Sarah didn't know how to respond to him, she never did.

"I can't afford to leave men and magic resources here." Sarah didn't understand what he was getting at. "We need to be able to keep an eye on you."

He meant...? A thrill surged through her art the thought of the Labyrinth again. Was the catch worth it though? 

"The catch is you might get to see Toby alive before you die." Jareth snapped at her, every inch the arrogant Goblin King. Corrected Sarah cringed as she uttered the words she had sworn never to mouth again. "I wish the Goblin King would take me away. Right now."

Mauritania watched, as always from the shadows, just one moment, and reeled in the guards and followed in his wake. 


	5. Chapter 4: Preparations

AN: I feel Chapter Five coming... Please review.

****

Within.

Chapter 4: Preparations. 

Jareth smiled sardonically to himself. He finally had Sarah in the Underground of her own free will, if in commanding circumstances and he didn't have time to even spy on her. Typical. 

He'd been rushing round all fortnight organising and preparing for the invasion that would surely come. The invasion that when it came they couldn't possibly fend off, for no longer where they united with humans and their technology with the power of the sun, no longer where they the great and all-powerful Fae. They had won by the skin of their little fingernails at great cost last time.

It had been a down hill spiral for the mighty since then. 

Jareth and his advisors had been plotting and planing trying to devise a way to stab the enemy in the back, to destroy them completely before they did the same to them. 

"We would have to send a group into their land to destroy their heart."

Everyone nodded; destroying the heart would destroy all but the strongest of them, and render them helpless to iron poisoning. But who to send? The unspoken thought flew though their minds. Faes couldn't survive travel in such a barren land. Mortals or death wishing Fae could only go. 

They talked and planned all-night and got nowhere. Who where they to ask of others what they wouldn't do themselves? They talked and talked and talked. Nothing was decided, nothing solved. _Nothing? Nothing? Nothing? Tra la la_. Jareth relaxed for a split second, allowing his eyes to briefly close, to re-examine his minds eye picture of Sarah. 

__

Sarah is mortal. A traitorous voice hissed. The political part of him that was concerned for the fate of the world.

__

Sarah is **not** going! The man that was caring for his woman yelled back.

He could still see the Fae, the Sid'he, the Elves, the Goblins, the Fairies with their wings ripped off being cast into the heart, like live firewood, that screamed and screamed as they where shredded to what they once where. Pure chaos. But they where dead, filled with the blood lust to live, a decaying corpse of rotten flesh. Their laughing with glee and fulfilment as they watched them squirm in endless agony. 

Where would they be keeping Toby? That was why they had him, a sacrifice for their Blood God, their hunger for life. Jareth dreaded to think of what he was going through in that place. It sucked all the joy, all the goodness, and all the love out of being leaving only a husk, which they would fill with dark blood, pain and evil. The Rite of Deceased Power allowed them to reap what they needed and craved. 

He gave in and allowed himself to conjured a crystal, filled with Sarah's' image. Even she looked stretched and wane. 

He could get her there, with some form of protection...

__

NO! She's not going! He couldn't use her for this!

"Mauritania!"

"Thir?"

"Can you find me a blood relation of Toby."

"Tharah."

"NO!"

"The retht are dead under thuthpithiouth thircumthtanceth." Jareth blinked and refllected. It made it all clear. Why it had taken so much effort to stop that truck. He hadn't just being fighting physics; he'd been fighting Demented Magic. No wonder... His blood ran cold. It could have killed him.

"I can't let her."

"With all resthpect thir, I _dare_ you to say that to her face. It ith her choithe to make. Vot other have we?"

Jareth wanted to scream at her that he didn't want her respect, he wanted her obedience and to go and find him a blood relative of Toby now, but he knew. His insides tightened and went to hide at that admission. "Who would you suggest we send with her?"

"Me, I am expendable, and am old enough to remember the wayth. Arran, Kayla, Lay, Morgan and Rav."

"See to it."

"Thir."

"Mauritania?"

"Thir?"

"Thank you."

"Thir." 

She was gone.

Jareth went to swallow his heavy heart and tell her. 

But if he didn't tell her she wouldn't have to go. She would never know. 

And when they all died because of the Undead and their magic, she would be the first to blame him, Jareth. He sighed, at least it gave him an excuse to see her. 

Sarah was bored, and driving herself crazy. Every second she thought of Toby and what she should have done. She wanted the earth to swallow her so she didn't have to live with it and be tortured by her imagination of what could or might have happened to him. _It's just as well I didn't give into my dreams before, if this is what happens._ She thought grimly. She felt intense eyes on her and turned, slowly, to face them.

By the Bog, Jareth thought, waxen and unkept with bruises under her eyes she looked practically edible. He wanted her, to be able to keep her safe, and cherish her beauty, her strength, her will...

"Any news?" she asked him, half-dreading, half-hoping. It tore him two, she never could see him when Toby was in danger.

"Same news."

She deflated, looking beaten. His Sarah... oh how she had fallen. He wanted to pick her up, so she would be safely supported in his arms. 

"There is a way we can find him." She opened her soft mouth to speak. He cut her off savagely, before he didn't tell her. "A blood relative of Tobys' will be able to be used as a tracking device in The Dark Lands. I would be able to translocate you and a select group there, on the outskirts without alerting them. Then you would grab Toby and they'd destroy the heart."

"I'll do it."

"I..." Jareth stared at her. How could he tell her?

"I know it'll be dangerous." Jareth slumped mentally. He willed her to refuse. He never should have mentioned it to her. 

"You set off at first light. I can not go with you. Take this." He conjured and handed over a flowing silver chain with a crystal pendant. "When you have Toby, wish your self away. The pendant will give me a focus to open the portal of what will hopefully be the shredding." 

Bustling, panicked activity could be heard filtering up to where they where. They gazed at each other, across the divide. 

"Thank you," Sarah said hesitantly. Her words hung on the tension filled air, floating on the breeze to fall seemingly unheeded on the dust. 

"Drink this to sleep." He handed her a steaming goblet, then backed quickly away as if she would bite him. "You set off early tomorrow."


	6. Chapter 5: Land of Death and Dust

AN: Please review. Please. It let's me know if I'm doing bad or good.

****

Within.

Chapter 5: Land of the Dead.

The air was dry and thick with black and red dust. It choked Sarah with its mixture of toxins that humans couldn't in a thousand years hope to match. Her watering eyes made out someone offering her a veil. 

With it safely filtering her air she squinted at the grim faced warrior that had given it to her. "Thanks." She murmured. It was either Arran or Lay, who where both elves and could have been twins for all Sarah could see.

"Now, we move quickly and silently." Kayla was saying, for her benefit Sarah realised, the others all knew their places. Sarah concentrated on what the Changeling was saying as Kayla hide her impossibly black and white features under a veil. 

"Ath thoon ath the thcouts return we thet off." Sarah nodded, wishing she where home and everything was okay in her selfish existence. She wondered what Jareth was doing and choice to think of him, instead of the situation she had insisted on entering. 

She blushed as she realised they where waiting for her. _For Toby, _she thought, and felt stronger as memories of him filled her.

It seemed to Sarah that they had been going on forever and ever... no end in sight. She couldn't see anything through the smog and the grime that was filtering through her clothes, itching and irritating her tender eyes and throat and not to mention the sandpaper effect it was having on her feet. 

__

You're no good really. A voice pointed out, _do you really think you could save Toby from here? _

I saved him from the Labyrinth! Sarah cried back at herself.

__

But Jareth gave you a break, probably just to get rid of you.

He said...

Yes, what **did** he say?

Sarah didn't have an answer. He hadn't said anything in words...

The voices howled with glee, like a wind of horses stampeding with deadly and cruel skill to trample the hopeful entered her mind. It alerted her.

__

You are not me! You are nothing! I **know** and that's all that counts. It tried to show her all the times she hadn't known, all the times she had failed and emphasised her sores and ills physical and mental. With dogged determination she strode on, more confident now that they where worried enough to try and prevent her.

__

We do not try little girl, but we know now- 

She fell to the jagged rock as she tripped over something soft with bones in. Alarmed and relieved Sarah peered and saw one of her group. She shook the body hard to recognise the rasping moan.

"Mauritania!" Sarah's' voice was shrill. She needed them to get there. And if they couldn't get there, how could she? 

__

You're worthless.

"Shut up!" Sarah snapped aloud, thinking hard. Maybe if she did that...

Jareth scowled at the two foot seeing crystal that was on a spectacularly ornate stand. It wasn't showing him good news. All he could see was the atmosphere of the place. He had no way of knowing where the company he had sent with Sarah were or if they where even alive. He kept his face arrogantly angry and turned to face Sarribean. 

"What do you mean you will not give us aid?" Jareth ground out.

"What I said." Saraibean answered calmly as he chased his live dinner round his plate, taking jabs at the gaps in the lobsters' amour. "I feel this is the time where 'Reason hath left, leaving just me.'"

Jareth forced himself to be still. The bastard was quoting the treaty at him! "And the treaty also rules that in times as these you will offer all the aid that you're country can muster!" 

"But to what end? Remember last time? The Changelings and other such riffraff nearly starved and blamed us for it. If we force them to go then they will have no reason to complain..." 

"You mean to let them die and suffer so we don't?" Jareth asked him icily. 

Sarribean didn't seem to notice Jareths homicidal mood. "Yes," he said earnestly, "let the worthless die..."

Jareth didn't do anything rash, as someone had beaten him to it. The only plump Fairy of the lot was smashed across the room into the heavily fortified walls. Jareth noted with satisfaction that the bugger had been knocked out. Changeling Magic in that respect was so much more convenient than Fae, Sid'he or Elf. 

Let's say if Sarribean where to remain ill, his generals would surely be disappointed but Jareth was sure they would manage. Generals where known for their bravery. They where the brains behind Sarribeans' forces last time and it seemed like Sarribean was plotting treachery.

Another thing to be wary of. Inside betrayal. Jareth would have to activate the long unused and unneeded Listeners that surrounded the kingdom. They would alert anyone to falling to such a fate.

It was a pity that Jareth couldn't do the same for Sarah. She was all alone in a world that would not let her learn and grow, but would destroy her and put her together as a monster that would not be Sarah. Just the memory of her in her mutated and ruined corpse.

Jareth felt the inside devastation at having to put the one he loved at such a risk. How he hated feeling this, spread thinly over a continental sized war. Thank the bog for his allies. 

And it did give him something to do, so he didn't fall to brooding in the dark. 


End file.
